People involved with the payoffs are extremely reluctant to
discuss them, but four contributing writers to prominent
publications including Mashable, Inc, Business Insider, and
Entrepreneur told me they have personally accepted payments in
exchange for weaving promotional references to brands into their
work on those sites. Two of the writers acknowledged they have
taken part in the scheme for years, on behalf of many brands.
Mario Ruiz, a spokesperson for Business Insider, said in an email
that “Business Insider has a strict policy that prohibits any of
our writers, whether full-time staffers or contributors, from
accepting payment of any kind in exchange for coverage.”

One of them, a contributor to Fast Company and other outlets who
asked not to be identified by name, described how he had
inserted references to a well-known startup that offers email
marketing software into multiple online articles, in Fast
Company and elsewhere, on behalf of a marketing agency he
declined to name. To make the references seem natural, he said,
he often links to case studies and how-to guides published by
the startup on its own site. Other times, he’ll just praise a
certain aspect of the company’s business to support a point in
an otherwise unrelated story. […]

The Fast Company writer also defended the practice by arguing that
it’s enabled by editors who are hungry for cheap or unpaid blog
content. Many high-volume sites, including the Huffington Post,
Entrepreneur, and Forbes, maintain networks of unpaid contributors
who publish large amounts of material.

That’s a pathetic defense. Everyone is guilty in this racket — the “sponsors” who pay for this bullshit, the writers who accept the payola, and publications that blindly run these stories. There’s a complete and shameless lack of integrity from all three sides.